


The Exchange

by jeeno2



Series: ABO trash [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha Rey (Star Wars), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Omega Ben Solo, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-05-13 06:04:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19245316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: Really, he should try to be nice to this person. They’re going to be roommates for the summer. Of a sort, anyway. Rey hasn’t done anything wrong, and doesn’t deserve to bear the brunt of his irritation.It’s with this thought in mind that Ben gets out of his chair and opens the front door to his parents’ house.When he sees Rey, the exchange student staying with this them this summer, standing on the other side of it--when he smells her--he nearly chokes on his tongue.------(In which Ben Solo is an Omega, and Rey, the British exchange student staying with his family for the summer is--to everyone’s surprise--an Alpha.)





	1. surprise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohwise1ne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohwise1ne/gifts).



> Dearest Kat, I've been wanting to write you something for a very long time now just because you are such a kind, helpful person (to me specifically, and to the fandom at large). Your birthday seemed like as good an opportunity as any to do this!
> 
> This premise is... not exactly something you have ever asked me for. *hides behind hands* But I hope you like it all the same <3
> 
> Happiest of happy birthdays! Here’s some trash. 😘

The minute Ben opens the front door of his childhood home that old, familiar sense of dread rises up in him like a bad hangover he can’t shake.

He drops his bags by the door and doesn’t even bother taking off his shoes before walking inside. His mom would be pissed if she saw him do it, shouting at him about antique rugs and hardwood floors and other shit he’s never cared about.

But his mom isn’t here right now. And she won’t be back from San Francisco for another two weeks.

It’s long been Ben’s philosophy that what his mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

As he walks further into the house he grew up in, Ben braces himself for what he knows is coming. Things can’t have changed _that_ much since August, can they?

He takes a deep breath. Testing the air.

 _No_ , he realizes, resigned.

Things haven’t changed at all.

He hasn’t been back in almost a year but the place still smells exactly as it always has. His suppressants are good, but there isn’t a suppressant on the market that can mask the way this house smells. Years’ worth of his parents’ arguments are still here, traces of them left behind in their very specific alpha scents, covering everything. All their posturing, all of their fights that at their core have always been about dominance, permeate this house, seeping into every nook and cranny.

The effect this has on Ben at twenty-three isn’t much different than the effect it had on him when he was thirteen, and presented as the first omega in the Skywalker family line in god only knows how long. The air in here is stifling. Choking. Ben’s instinct right now is to curl up in on himself, to collapse down into a tight little ball, and protect himself from forces far stronger and much more willful than his own.

Fortunately, Ben is much better at ignoring his instincts now than he was when he was a hormonal thirteen-year-old. Also, the suppressants he’s on now are much better. Otherwise he never would have agreed to this.

He coughs into his hand to try and clear his airways, and then makes his way into the kitchen. There’s a pitcher of cold water waiting on one of the granite countertops. For him, presumably. There are still a few ice cubes floating in it, which means Maria, the woman who’s cleaned for the Organa-Solos since before Ben knew how to walk, can’t have left very long ago.

Ben pops another suppressant into his mouth for good measure, pours himself a glass of water, and gulps it down. It’s a hot day, and the water is cool and refreshing. It helps a little with the headache he’s been fighting off all afternoon. It does little, however, to dispel the feeling that coming back home for the summer was a terrible mistake.

Just as he’s about to pour himself a second glass, Ben’s phone buzzes in his pocket with a new text. He sits down heavily at the kitchen table as he pulls it out, already knowing who it’s from before he even looks at the screen.

“Hello, Mother,” he mutters, to no one.

**Hi Ben.**

**I just got a call from Rey.**

**The exchange student staying at the house this summer, remember?**

_Yes mom_

_I remember_

**Good.**

**She’s at O’Hare and says her Lyft will get her to the house in about an hour.**

**Are you there yet?**

Ben runs a hand through his hair and tries to tamp down the helpless irritability he always feels whenever he has to interact with his parents. _They aren’t here_ , he reminds himself. _They’re two thousand miles away_.

There’s no point in feeling this way right now.

It’s “counterproductive,” his therapist would probably say if she were here.

_Yeah. I’m here_

_I got in from Ann Arbor this morning and just got to the house_

**Oh good.**

**I’m glad you’ll be there to welcome her.**

There are a bunch of things Ben wants to ask right now. For starters: why the fuck did she and Dad agree to host a British exchange student during a summer when neither one of them will be in town for more than a few days at a time?

It isn’t like Ben is _busy_ this summer, exactly. Sure, his internship at Snoke’s firm will occupy his daytime hours. But he doesn’t have any friends in Chicago this summer, and doesn’t anticipate having much to do in the evenings or weekends. Even if he ends up working twelve hour days Ben should still have plenty of time to show this person around town or campus or whatever it is they’ll need help with.

But that doesn’t really matter, because it’s the _principle_ of the thing--the fact that his parents invited Rey the Exchange Student to live here during a summer when their son was going to be around and they were not, on the implied assumption that he’d be okay with it--that sets his teeth on edge.

Par for the course with them, though, really.

**It’s important for us to support the university exchange program even though your father and I will be away this summer.**

_I know, Mom._

**Rey’s flight info is on a notepad on the coffee table but it sounds like you won’t need it since she already landed.**

_Right._

**I had Maria make up her room upstairs.**

_Oh._

_The guest room?_

**Yes. The room across the hall from yours.**

_Okay. Got it._

**Thanks, Ben**

**We’ll see you in a few weeks.**

_Sure._

The conversation with his mother over, Ben shuts his phone off. He hesitates for a moment, and then throws the thing at the wall so hard the screen cracks.

Breaking things used to make him feel a little better when he was a teenager. It doesn’t really do much for him now, though. It probably means he’s grown as a person, or something. But right now, he doesn’t really care.

He groans, and sits back down in one of the kitchen chairs.

Living here this summer is going to save him a ton of money, but still-- this was an absolutely terrible idea.

“What was I thinking,” he mutters into his hands.

 

* * *

 

Ben’s phone is still shut off, and he is sitting in one of the new living room chairs with his laptop opened to his email, when there’s a sharp knock on the front door.

He glances up at the clock mounted over the limestone fireplace. It’s an antique, or something. Or maybe it’s just really old. Anyway, his mother loves it. And it’s 5:45, which is almost exactly an hour after his short texting conversation with his mother.

This has to be Rey the Exchange Student.

Ben sighs and runs a quick hand through his hair in a reflexive attempt to make himself look somewhat presentable.

The exchange students who come through as part of his mother’s international program are usually tolerable, for the most part. They typically keep to themselves, preferring to spend their free time with the other students in the program rather than the surly, awkward son of their host. That suited Ben just fine when he was a teenager, mad at his parents and at the world and uncomfortable in his own skin.

It suits him just fine now, too.

Really, he should try to be nice to this person. They’re going to be roommates for the summer. Of a sort, anyway. Rey the Exchange Student hasn’t done anything wrong, and doesn’t deserve to bear the brunt of his irritation.

It’s with this thought in mind that Ben gets out of his chair and opens the front door to his parents’ house.

When he sees the person standing on the other side of it--when he _smells_ her--he nearly chokes on his tongue.

Until this moment, Ben thought he understood what it meant to be an omega. He’s had irritating, somewhat unpredictable mood swings all his life. He finds it more difficult than he’d like to stand up for himself, especially when in the presence of more aggressive alphas. Sometimes, if he’s forgotten to refill his suppressants, and he has the misfortune to catch a whiff of some alpha off their blockers, he’ll get embarrassingly horny with almost no notice at all.

And then, of course, there’s the worst part: the heats, where twice a year he has to lock himself away from polite society for a few days so he can jerk off miserably and incessantly into a sock.

But the moment he smells Rey the Exchange Student--unquestionably an alpha, and not on any blockers that Ben can smell; why on God’s green earth did his parents agree to house an _alpha_ at the same time he was going to be home?--Ben realizes that until now he had known nothing about anything at all.

Rey’s scent _intoxicates_ him, immediately. It grabs him by the collar and _compels_ him to pay her his undivided attention. Her scent is… goodness. And light. Strength, and unconditional love. Safety. Protection.

_Home._

Until a few moments ago Ben had been stuck in his own head, reading through emails from Phasma, the director of his summer internship program. But all he can think about now is how much he wants to bury his nose in Rey’s soft hair, to surround himself with her unbelievable scent. He wants to do these things so badly, so viscerally, it’s like he isn’t on suppressants at all.

He wants to let this alpha _consume_ him. He wants nothing more than to be consumed by her.

Nothing remotely like this has ever happened to him before and he is _reeling_ with the enormity of it.

Ben blinks, and dimly registers that Rey comes up to about his shoulder in height ( _she’d keep him safe, protect him from all the people who want to hurt him_ ). He vaguely notices that her hair is shoulder-length, straight, and light brown in color ( _her hair would feel so good so right so_ perfect _, wrapped tight around his fist, his cock driving up into her as she holds herself above him, as he gives this alpha all the physical pleasure she could ever want)_. He takes in her heart-shaped face; her bright eyes he could happily let himself drown in; her clear skin; that faint smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose he would give anything to taste.

Ben has been standing in front of this complete stranger for less than a minute, blinking at her like a thunderstruck idiot, but her scent--strong, demanding; the only scent and the only thing in the world that has ever mattered--is reaching inside him, coaxing an erection out of him that’s already so hard it’s almost painful.

Her scent is making his body ready for her, he realizes with a start. Like his body was _made_ for hers.

“ _Oh_ ,” Rey says suddenly, and very loudly, on a sharp inhalation of breath. The sound of it snaps Ben out of his reverie. She shifts her weight from foot to foot (she’s wearing plain brown sandals, with a dainty ankle bracelet on her right leg that somehow makes him impossibly harder). Her brown eyes dart all over him. They take in his face, his chest. They drift lower, to the rapidly growing bulge in his jeans. Her eyes widen at the sight of it; he can smell the sudden spike in her arousal so acutely it’s like a physical blow.

 _My body is pleasing to her_ , a small primal part of him shouts. _I have pleased this alpha._

Ben leans forward, towards her, instinctively, but keeps himself in check when he sees the way she is holding herself. Her back, her shoulders, are ramrod straight. Her body is tight, coiled like a spring. Ready to run. To flee. Her eyes are wide, and--

 _She’s frightened_ , Ben realizes, suddenly.

Ben takes a step back, looks her over from head to toe.

There’s no mistaking it. Rey is clearly frightened of something. Is she frightened of _him_ ? Every instinct in Ben’s body is screaming at him to _fix it._ To put her at ease.

So he says the first stupid thing that comes to mind.

“You… must be tired,” he says. His voice breaks twice as he says the words-- _like a_ _fucking_ _teenager_ \--and he cringes. “Can I--” He trails off. Swallows. His mouth is making too much saliva right now. He can hardly think, with her  standing right there, looking at him. Smelling the way she does. But he doesn’t _want_ to think right now, he wants to bend himself to her will, do whatever she wants him to do, and he doesn’t even know her last name yet or what her major is and this is _insane._ “Can I show you to your....”

The rest of Ben’s words die on his lips as Rey reaches up, tentatively, and gently brushes a wayward strand of hair out of his eyes. For a very long moment he forgets how to breathe.

When he doesn’t finish the sentence--simply continues to stand there, staring at her, slack-jawed--Rey comes to his rescue.

“Can you show me to my… what, exactly?” Rey’s voice is smooth, kind, her crisp British accent a sweet honey he is desperate to taste.

He sighs. Closes his eyes.

 _Pull yourself the_ fuck _together, Solo._

“Can I... show you to your room?” he eventually manages. His voice doesn’t break this time. He is ridiculously proud of that small victory.

Rey nods, one quick little jerk of her chin. She gives him a small smile. “Yeah,” she says, very quietly. Too quietly. “I’m knackered. And… and that would be good.” She licks her lips, and the sight of her tongue--pink, and wet, sliding delicately over her lower lip--goes right to his cock.

He clears his throat as he fights to hold on to some semblance of control.  

“Good. Yeah. Good,” he grits out. He reaches out a hand for her bags. She nods again, handing them over. The relief that goes through him that he’s able to help her in this small way is indescribable. _She’s had a long trip. She’s tired. I’m helping her with her bags._ “Just… um. Follow me.”

Her hand brushes his as they move towards the stairs--just the barest of touches; there, and then gone again-- and Ben wonders if this is what dying feels like.

 

* * *

 

 

The climb to the second floor of his parents’ home is interminable. They pass framed photographs of his parents on their wedding day, pictures from his first day of kindergarten and last day of high school, in silence, her hand mere inches from his, her intoxicating scent growing stronger the longer they are alone together and the closer they get to her room.

“Your house is gorgeous, Ben,” she breathes. “And so big. It’s just… absolutely gorgeous. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

She’s right behind him on the stairs, her footfalls echoing each one of his as they climb. She is so close to him he can feel her words as little puffs of warm air on the back of his neck.

“Gorgeous,” he repeats, feeling lightheaded.

When they finally get to the guest room, Ben rests one hand on the doorknob. His heart is pounding so hard in his chest surely Rey can hear it from where she’s standing.

This is ridiculous. This whole situation is absolutely _ridiculous_. Ten minutes ago he was irritated with himself for having decided to move back home for the summer, and now--

“Well,” he says. His voice sounds strange to his ears. He clears his throat. “Here we are.” And he doesn’t know what comes next--not really; he’s had daydreams, and nightmares, of what it might be like to get fucked by an alpha, but it’s never actually happened to him before--but he knows that whatever _does_ come next, he’s so desperate for it that he would give this woman literally anything she asked if only she would agree to give it to him.

Rey nods, very slowly. Her beautiful brown eyes are wide again, and she’s trembling, and he may not have ever done this before but he’d have to be _dead_ not to notice the way her alpha scent is blooming, growing stronger, richer. More powerful.

Slowly, slowly, Rey reaches up again with both hands, and gently strokes the scent glands at either side of his neck with the backs of her fingers. Tentatively; like she’s discovering them, and him, for the very first time. She’s barely touching him, applying only the slightest bit of pressure against his ribbed flesh, but something about the feel of her hands on his body feels possessive. Not a claiming bite but a _claiming_ of sorts, all the same.

And it’s nearly unbearable, the pleasure of it. It rips through him like a knife, and Ben has to bite his lip and dig his fingernails into his palms keep from moaning. The urge to get down on his knees, prostrate himself before this alpha he’s only just met, and give her everything she wants, is nearly overpowering.

“Alpha,” he whimpers, leaning into her touch. Giving himself over to it before he can stop himself. “ _Please_ \--”

And then just like that, the moment shatters.

“No!” Rey shrieks. She yanks her hands away from Ben as quickly and abruptly as she might pull them back from a hot stove.

Ben blinks his eyes open, stunned, the sudden loss of physical contact like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head.

“What--” he splutters. Trying to understand, trying to make sense of what just happened. “I’m sorry, but--”

“Ben,” she says. It sounds like pleading. Her eyes are wide, wild. Terrified.

She shakes her head vigorously. As Ben watches, stunned stupid, she turns the door handle to the guest room and walks inside.

She pauses a moment, and then opens her mouth to say something.

“I’m... sorry,” she says. “I just… I’m just--”

She lets out a strange, strangled kind of sob, and then slams the door shut behind her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still working on an approximate chapter count for this fic. It'll likely be between 10 and 15 chapters, but until I pin it down more accurately I'm going to leave that question mark up there for chapter count. ;)

**WebMD: Frequently-Asked Questions about Late-Onset Alpha Presentation**

_Q: What constitutes “late-onset” alpha presentation?_

_A: Most alphas and omegas start showing clear signs of their designation sometime during puberty. Because the age of puberty onset varies, so too does the age a person may begin showing signs of their designation. I_ _t is unusual for an alpha not to experience their first rut by the time they are sixteen. Any person who exhibits any of the following alpha-defining characteristics and behaviors for the first time after age sixteen is considered to have had a “late-onset alpha presentation”:_

 

  * _Unexplained, unpredictable aggression;_


  * _Sudden, possibly unexpected, and nearly irresistible sexual attraction to omegas (especially to omegas in heat);_


  * _An urgent, overpowering need to protect and care for an omega in heat;_


  * _Rut_



 

_Q: What causes late-onset alpha presentation?_

_A: A variety of genetic and social factors. Preliminary studies suggest that the same factors that may lead to delayed puberty can cause an alpha to present later than average._

 

_Q: What additional difficulties do late-presenting alphas face?_

_A: Most late-presenting alphas live normal lives. That said, in recent behavioral studies, many alphas who did not present until adulthood found the sudden change more difficult to accept than those who grew accustomed to it gradually during adolescence._ _Additionally, in clinical trials, conventional blockers have been shown to be approximately 35% less effective for late-presenting alphas than in alphas who present during adolescence._

_It is very important for late-presenting alphas to be in touch with medical professionals as soon as possible to ensure they receive the best available medical care._

 

* * *

 

Rey slams her laptop shut, only barely resisting the urge to throw it across the room.

This…

This cannot be happening.

Until three hours ago, she had always assumed she was a beta. She has vivid memories of sitting in the back of the school lunchroom when she was thirteen years old, mystified as she watched her classmates preen and posture for one another in ways she could only barely understand.

By the time she was fifteen she had already watched half the people she went to school with navigate the complicated minefield of presenting. But by then, Rey had figured that none of that alpha-omega foolishness was ever going to happen to her.

She has never experienced a heat. She has never gone through rut. She has never smelled anybody that made her irrationally and uncontrollably horny.

And she is nineteen years old.  

And honestly, she has always been fine with being a beta. Based on everything she’s seen the beta lifestyle has always seemed... simpler. She’s never had to worry about irregular heats, or suppressants, or accidentally catching a whiff of somebody who was going to be far more trouble than they were worth.  

As a beta, Rey has always had the freedom to be with someone just because she loves them--in theory, anyway; it isn’t like there’s ever been anyone serious--or simply because she wants to be with them, without that dire sense of biological inevitability hanging over her all the time.

But when she got to Leia Organa’s house tonight, sweaty and exhausted and jet-lagged from her travels, and her son greeted her at the door, everything Rey thought she knew about herself was turned on its head in an instant. Rey had taken a deep breath, and smelled… _Ben._ Only Ben. He had smelled like warmth and old leather. Musk, and all the comforts of a home she has never known.

His scent had captivated her. _He_ had captivated her. Completely, and in the blink of an eye.

She was completely overwhelmed.

And unprepared.

When Rey reached up and touched his scent glands she had been acting on pure instinct, hardly even aware of what she was doing. God only knows what she might have done to him if Ben hadn’t called her _alpha_ when he did, bringing her back to her senses.

If Rey had known she would react this way to Leia Organa’s omega son she never would have accepted this housing arrangement. What’s more--if the university had known she wasn’t a beta they never would have sent her here in the first place.

She needs to see a doctor, as soon as possible, to find out for sure if it’s true. And to figure out what the hell she’s going to do if it is.

Sighing, frustrated, Rey walks over to her closed bedroom door and presses her cheek to the wood. It feels pleasant, cool against her overheated skin. She closes her eyes, relieved when she realizes Ben isn’t in the hallway anymore. She can’t smell him. If he were still out there, she would.

Tentatively, Rey opens the door a crack and peeks out.

She doesn’t see him, either.  

The coast is clear.

Rey is beyond exhausted. It’s only eight o’clock, but she woke up in London this morning and it feels like the middle of the night. But she already knows she won’t be able to sleep if she lies down right now. She’s too hot-- _far_ too hot--and full of way too much pent-up anxiety for sleep.

She needs something--a glass of cold water, a walk outside, _something_ \--to clear her head and calm her down.

She creeps into the hallway and then makes her way down the big, beautiful staircase. Leia Organa’s home is incredible. Unlike any house she’s ever seen before, and a far cry from her tiny studio apartment in central London. If she weren’t so distracted right now she would probably want to take a good look around, pay closer attention to the furniture and to the way the home itself is constructed.

But she is distracted. Far too distracted.

She decides on a glass of something to drink before going on a walk and heads towards the kitchen to investigate options.

She smells Ben before she sees him.

He’s in the kitchen too, sitting at the mahogany table in the center of the room. He’s bent over a laptop and something that looks like a textbook from this distance. (“Ben is in graduate school,” Ms. Organa’s email had said. “A joint JD-MBA program. He’s home during the summer for an internship.”) Whatever it is he’s reading, he certainly doesn’t look happy about it. His brow is furrowed, and the corners of his lips are turned down in something that looks halfway between a frown and an outright scowl.

It occurs to Rey that she could just turn around and go back up to her bedroom. Perhaps the best thing to do is just… avoid him altogether until she can get a doctor to prescribe some blockers. Actually, even once she’s on them, she should probably give this guy a wide berth the rest of the summer.

Or maybe she should even ask to be given a different housing situation altogether. One where she wouldn’t have to live with someone as distracting as Ben Solo.

But in the end, Rey decides there’s really no point in putting off the inevitable. He’s here. And so is she. Even if she asks for a new housing situation first thing in the morning there’s no getting around the fact that she’s just too tired to run away right now--and that she is really, really thirsty.

Resigned, Rey walks into the kitchen, breathing through her mouth to be safe. She can still smell him a little this way, but it’s more muted. Almost bearable. She puts as much physical distance between them as possible so that she at least has a chance of getting this glass of water without becoming desperate to jump him right where he’s sitting.

She leans back against one of the counters, about ten feet away from him, arms folded tightly across her chest.

Only then does she let her eyes really settle on him.

He’s still wearing the same clothes he had on earlier: a black, tight-fitting t-shirt that stretches across his broad chest and shows off arms that suggest he spends a lot more time at the gym than she thought a JD-MBA student would have time for. She’s glad he’s sitting down rather than standing above her. It takes away a little of the dizzying, stunned feeling that bowled her over so thoroughly the first time she saw him.

He is a _massive_ person though, even sitting down, all arms and legs and muscled chest, with hands so large she wouldn’t have believed he was an omega if she hadn’t smelled the evidence of it herself.

It takes Ben a long moment to look up from his computer and acknowledge her, though the tight set of his jaw and his stiff posture suggest he’s just as aware of her presence as she is of his. But then, at length, he closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath through his nose, and lets it out slowly, clenching and unclenching his hands into fists on the table.

Slowly, he turns his head until he’s looking right at her. His eyes are brown, soft. And hurt. _She_ made him look that way. _She_ hurt him. Rey’s stomach clenches with the knowledge of it, even though she barely understands how or why it happened.

He clears his throat.

“Hi,” he says, very quietly.

She tries to smile. “Hi.”

“I thought maybe you’d gone to sleep.” He returns her smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “You were quiet in there a long time.”

“Oh,” she says. He’s still looking at her, eyes so soft. Reverent. She has to look away, finds she _can’t_ look at him while he’s looking at her like that. So much quiet intensity. It already feels a little like drowning, and she’s only been here with him a few short moments. “I couldn’t sleep. I’m… thirsty. I came downstairs for some water.”

Ben nods. And then he gets up from the table, and reaches above her head to pull a glass down from one of the kitchen cabinets. The movement causes his t-shirt to ride up a little, exposing a slim strip of his midriff. He’s standing so close now, and the scent he gives off is like molten honey right down her spine. It threatens to pull her under. Snap what’s left of her restraint right in two.

She closes her eyes, trying to fight it. Soon--too soon; and yet not soon enough--she feels the air around her shift as he moves away. She hears him press the glass to the refrigerator, hears it as the water fills the glass.

“Here,” he says, a moment later.

Rey opens her eyes, and there he is, standing less than a foot away and holding out a glass of water. She takes it, being very careful not to touch his hand in the process.

“Thank you, Ben.”

A little shiver goes through him when she says his name. He shrugs, tries to look casual. But she isn’t fooled. “Sure.”

Rey puts the glass to her lips and drinks eagerly, grateful for the cool relief she feels as the water hits her parched throat.

“What are you studying this summer?” he asks, once she’s drained the glass.

The innocuous question surprises her. Under normal circumstances it would, of course, be a perfectly appropriate thing for a host brother to ask his host sister her first night at the house. But even breathing through her mouth, Ben Solo’s scent is almost more than she can bear. A quick glance down at the front of his jeans, and at the bulge that’s already growing there, further confirms that he feels it too.

And that nothing about these circumstances is normal.

“Architecture,” she says, trying to stay calm. She puts the glass back down on the counter behind her. “A summer in Chicago is--”

“Part of your degree,” he finishes for her. He gives her a smile. A real one this time. It lights up his entire face. _Beautiful_ , Rey thinks, before she can stop herself. “Is that what you were going to say?”

She blinks at him a few times, trying to clear her head. “Oh. Yes. It’s… part of my degree. Um, how did you know?”

“We have a lot of exchange students live with us,” Ben says. He hasn’t moved away from her, is still standing less than a foot away from her. And he doesn’t seem to be breathing through his mouth the way she is. Her stomach gives a hard lurch. They are playing with fire here. He must know it as well as she does. “Most of them are studying engineering or architecture. English universities seem to think Chicago is a good place to spend a summer.”

“Yeah. I think that’s true.” Rey pauses. Bites her lip. “Ben….”

She trails off.

At the mention of his name again he swallows thickly. Rey watches as his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat.

“Yeah?” he asks. His voice is husky. Low.

“Do you... like it?”

His eyes go very wide. “I’m... I’m sorry?”

“Chicago, I mean,” she says, very quickly. _Jesus._ “What I meant is--do you like Chicago?”

But Ben doesn’t seem to be listening anymore. He’s moved even closer, and his eyes are on her lips, her chin, caressing the gentle slope of her collarbones.

He nods, but doesn’t say anything.

He moves closer still.

“Blockers,” Rey squeaks. She tries to focus on the rest of the words she needs to get out, rather than the incredibly distracting way Ben smells and how badly she wants to _taste_ that scent. He’s _so close_ , all she would need to do is reach up, and-- “I need… blockers.”

A brief flicker of hurt flashes across Ben’s face. But he recovers quickly. The hurt expression is gone again almost as quickly as it appeared.

“Did you... forget to bring them?” His voice is neutral, but he doesn’t move away from her. He doesn’t take his eyes off her face. “To Chicago, I mean.”

Rey swallows. Nods.

“I didn’t bring them with me,” she admits. It’s true enough. She doesn’t need to go into the rest of it--how up until three hours ago she’d never thought she had a _need_ for blockers. She doesn’t know this guy. He doesn’t need to know her life’s story. “I need to see a doctor. Soon. Tomorrow morning.”

“I can take you to the clinic on campus if you want,” Ben offers. “It’s summer. There shouldn’t be much of a wait if we go first thing.”

Until this moment, it hadn’t even occurred to Rey that she actually has no idea how to make a doctor’s appointment in America. At Ben’s words, a weight she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying is lifted off her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she breathes, relieved. “That would be a big help.” But then she glances over at the kitchen table. At the laptop he’d just been working on. The textbook, opened to a page somewhere in the middle. “But… don’t you have an internship you have to go to in the morning?”

He closes his eyes. “Yeah. It’s my first day. But I don’t care.” He moves infinitesimally closer to her, and she can feel his breath on her lips, so warm and sweet it reaches inside her, filling her heart with desperate, urgent longing.

But that doesn’t matter. He can’t blow off the first day of his summer job for her.

“No,” she says. “Just give me the address of the clinic. I’ll find it.”

“It’s fine, Rey.” He smiles again. Closes his eyes. “Please let me help you.”

“ _No_ , Ben,” she insists. “I won’t _let_ you miss your first day for me.”

The words come out much more emphatically than she’d intended. And her harsh, forceful tone is not lost on Ben. His eyes fly open and-- oh, _god--_ his pupils are so fat right now, blown wide with the same simmering desire Rey can feel coursing through her bloodstream.

He stares at her a long moment before speaking again.

“What _will_ you let me do?” His voice is low, urgent. The way he’s scrutinizing her face, the way his rich scent is blooming all around them, tells Rey he isn’t asking about a doctor’s appointment anymore. She glances down at the front of his jeans again and--

Her breath catches at the sight of him, already straining so hard against the front of his jeans it has to be painful. All her instincts are screaming at her to take this obviously willing omega back up the stairs with her and ride him to within an inch of his life. From the looks of things Ben Solo’s cock is just as massive as the rest of him. He would split her open, he would _fill her up_ , in a way that would leave her boneless and satisfied for days. Weeks.

And he’d do it for her. She knows he would do just about anything she asked right now, knows it instinctively, like she knows her own name.

“Rey. What will you let me do?” he asks again. His voice is pinched. Strained. He’s suffering, she realizes. This fucked up situation is actually causing him pain.

“I’m not... myself right now,” she says again. She takes a deep breath, reflexively, trying to calm her nerves. She instantly realizes her mistake. His… _scent._ She can’t think straight. He exudes need and vulnerability, and all she wants to do is comfort, protect, this man she doesn’t even know. And he’s a _giant._ The idea that she’d be able to protect him from anything is _ridiculous_ , and--

_Mine._

“I… I need blockers, Ben,” she says again. She looks away, unable to meet the intensity of his gaze.

He nods, but doesn’t move away. “Okay.”

“And it’s… it’s not fair of me to… to touch you. Or… or to ask anything of you. Not now. Not like this.”

Ben nods again, seeming to understand. But even as he does it he tilts his head a little to the side. The movement causes his long, shaggy hair to fall away from his neck and expose the scent gland right where his neck meets his shoulder.

She wonders if he’s even aware he’s done it.

She had touched him there, earlier tonight, without even thinking about it. Had felt _compelled_ to touch him there, for reasons she could not put into words if she tried. It beckons her now, holding her eyes to it with an almost magnetic pull.

He must notice the direction of her gaze because he says, very hoarse: “You can touch me, Rey.”

Her eyes snap to his. She swallows. The air is too thick. Too close. All she can see, feel, _smell_... is him.

“I shouldn’t,” she says, voice reedy and thin. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold back.” It’s the truth. She feels wild and drunk and burning hot, and once she touches him, once she gives in to whatever this is, what if--

“I don’t care.” He moves a little closer to her, tilting his head even further to the side. “You can’t hurt me.”

_But what if you’re wrong about that?_

“ _I_ care,” she says. But she can’t let him suffer. Not because of her. “But to answer your question... this is what I’ll let you do.”

She leans forward, opens her mouth, and touches his exposed scent gland with the tip of her tongue. The effect this has on Ben is immediate and explosive. He whines, long and loud, deep in the back of his throat. She moves her tongue a little, tasting him, savoring the scent of him, rich and warm, letting the first sparks of pleasure settle in at the base of her spine.

Fuck.

She could do this all day. Taste him all day.

She gives in to the heady feeling of control this gives her--just a little; just for a moment--and then reaches down to cup him over his jeans.

He nearly jumps out of his skin.

“ _Oh_ ,” he moans. His hands go to her hips, thick fingers flexing convulsively at the waistband of her jeans. He buries his face in her neck. His breath is so hot against her skin. He smells _incredible_ . She wants to eat him alive. How the fuck do alphas even manage to _function_ ? “ _Please.”_

The plea on his lips… does things to her. But she will resist the urges currently threatening to pull her under. She has to.

She owes him at least that much.

“Here’s what I’ll let you do,” she says again, murmuring the words wetly against his gland. Slowly, purposefully, she starts moving her hand along his length, up and down, alternating gentle squeezes with long hard pulls. He pulses beneath her hand, inside his jeans, _hard_ . His body is crying out for this, crying out for _harder_ and _more_ , and she shifts--realizing, suddenly, that her own panties are completely drenched.

It would feel so good, so _right_ , to just shove him back down into that chair she found him in minutes ago, pull him out of his jeans, and--

No.

 _No_.

This isn’t right.

“I’m going to go back to my room now,” she whispers. She gives his gland a long, broad lick at the same time she gives his cock another hard squeeze. She senses, somehow, that he is moments away from falling to pieces, right here in this kitchen. Once he does, she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to hold herself back anymore.

“Your room?” Ben is breathing hard now--panting, really--his chest heaving. He doesn’t lift his head from her shoulder. “Okay. Should I--”

“ _No_ ,” she says, firmly. “No.”

She stills her hand. Pulls it away. The sound he makes in response is barely human. A pitiful whine that makes her heart ache.

“ _Rey_ \--”

“I will let you touch yourself tonight,” she tells him. She reaches inside the waistband of her jeans, her drenched underwear. She dips two fingers inside her sopping folds, trying desperately to ignore just how _good_ it feels to touch herself there right now.

She pulls her fingers out and extends them to him. He stares at them, at her, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Stunned beyond speech.

“I will let you lick them,” she says.

And he does, sucking her fingers eagerly into his mouth. He lets out another long, pitiful groan, and his eyes roll back in his head as he laves her fingers with the achingly soft flat of his tongue. It is impossible for Rey not to imagine what his tongue might feel like somewhere else--both of her legs slung over his shoulders, his beautiful face buried between her thighs.

“I will… let you touch yourself tonight,” she says again. She’s losing him. She can tell. His scent is blooming hard and strong all around them, and Rey knows he will come all on his own, just from her taste and her words, any minute now. “As many times as you want to. As many times as you need to.”

He grunts his understanding, and nods as he continues to suck her fingers clean.

“And while you do it, you can think of me.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

Ben barely makes it to his bedroom before his shaking hands are on his belt buckle and he rips his pants, his boxer briefs, down his legs.

Rey told him he could touch himself. He’d have laughed at that if he hadn’t already been as far gone as he was. Because it’s not like he’s really going to be able to do anything _but_ spend the rest of the night with his own fist wrapped around his dick. Not after she worked him up into a blind frenzy like that–and turned him down. 

She had let him lick her fingers clean, and now the taste of her sweet cunt is seared indelibly into his brain as he grabs his hot, painfully swollen cock tight in his fist. Her scent trailed after him up the stairs, and he can still smell it, smell _her_ , even though she’s a floor below him in the kitchen. 

Ben kicks his door shut with one foot and leans back against it, mindless in his need for relief.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he grits out, moving his hand, jerking himself so hard and so forcefully it would be painful under any other circumstances. The memory of her tongue on his scent gland spurs his hand to move faster, feels like icy hot fire burning its way through his veins. 

He’d been able to smell how badly she wanted to fuck him. But she sent him away anyway.

That can only mean one thing.

_I don’t please her I don’t please her I don’t please her I don’t--_

The rebuke plays itself over and over again in his head as Ben pumps himself harder, faster, gritting his teeth as he chases the release that’s just out of reach--

When he comes on a hoarse shout of her name, the pleasure that rips through him blots out the shame.

 

* * *

 

 

Ben’s alarm goes off at six the next morning.

His first muzzy, bleary-eyed thought is that he no longer feels like he’s in the throes of one of the hardest heats of his life. 

He blinks open his eyes and rolls over onto his back. He isn’t drenched in sweat. Neither are his sheets. Which means that no matter what it felt like last night, he didn’t _really_ have a breakthrough heat. A good thing, given that he has to be at his new job in three hours.

He puts off getting out of bed for a little while longer and just stares at his bedroom ceiling, trying to muster the energy to start the morning. He breathes, in and out, through his nose. Testing the air. 

He can’t smell Rey at all anymore. 

That must mean…

She isn’t here. 

The sun hasn’t even fully risen yet, but she’s already gone. She probably went to the campus clinic like he suggested. The doctor on call should be able to set her up with blockers that will keep the disgusting omega she’s living with this summer from begging her to fuck him senseless.

Relief–pure, dizzy relief–goes through him at the realization that he won’t have to face her this morning. There is literally no downside to that. He has to get ready for the first day of what’s likely to be a very demanding internship. He _really_ can’t afford a repeat of last night right now. 

The earliest he’ll see Rey again will be tonight. By that time she’ll presumably be back on blockers. He’ll be able to act like a normal human being around her and everything will be okay.

All the same, a stab of disappointment he doesn’t really want to acknowledge goes through him when he thinks of how he won’t be able to smell her as well anymore. Because the truth is, a small, depraved part of himself _likes_ how this alpha makes him feel when she’s off blockers. Yes, she’d turned him down. She’d kind of humiliated him, too, when she offered him her cunt-drenched fingers and he greedily licked them clean like a fucking dog. But the orgasms he’d had last night, all alone in his room, writhing in agony on his bed while Rey sat there in her own bedroom just across the hall…

They _defied description_.

He can’t begin to imagine what it would feel like to have her cunt squeezing him, binding him solidly to her. Milking him dry.

He’s already a little hard again, just thinking about it.

But there isn’t time for that right now. 

He’s got to start the day.

Groaning a little, Ben gingerly pulls back his blankets and gets out of bed. He’s _really_ fucking sore. He may not be in heat, but he guesses he spent at least five hours last night jerking orgasms from his dick all the same.

He can’t remember the last time he ever did _that_ outside of heat.

As if this morning could be any more awkward than it already is, by the time Ben has made his way into the kitchen, his phone pings with several new texts from his mother.

**Just wanted to check in and say good morning.**

**Your father and I hope today goes well.**

**You know how disappointed we are that you decided to work for Snoke this summer.**

**But we love you and want to support you.**

Ben sits down at the kitchen table and huffs out a breath. He closes his eyes and rubs at his temples with both hands, doing an internal inventory to see if he has the emotional strength to have this particular text exchange with his mother right now.

In the end, he decides it’s better to just get it over with. She’ll keep texting him if he doesn’t reply.

_Thanks mom_

No need to respond to the rest of it. His mother has always been great at pushing his buttons. He’s too exhausted and spent to rise to the bait right now.

**Of course, dear.**

**And Rey?**

**Did she make it to the house okay?**

Ben’s stomach flips over just seeing her name pop up on his phone. It’s small, her name. Just like she is. It defies belief, really, how much strength she carries in her small frame. How quickly she’s wrapped him around her little finger.

_She’s great, mom_

_But_

_I think there’s been a mistake._

**Mistake?**

**How do you mean?**

_She’s an alpha._

There’s a long pause before his mother replies.

**Oh shit.**

**Ben**

**Honey**

**I’m so sorry.**

_So I take it this was a mistake?_

_You didn’t do this on purpose?_

**We would never do something like that to you intentionally.**

**We told the people in charge of making housing assignments that we would only be able to house a beta or an omega this summer.**

He nods. He believes her.

_Yeah ok_

_I kind of figured_

His parents are many terrible things. But deliberately, _intentionally_ cruel is not one of them. Their typical brand of cruelty is far subtler than this.

**Are you okay?**

Ben closes his eyes as he thinks through how to answer that question. Of course he’s not okay. He practically got down on his knees last night and begged an alpha he doesn’t know to drag him back to her room and have her way with him. Now that he’s downstairs and out of his bedroom he can smell her again. Just hints of her; warm and fragrant and perfect. But it’s enough, and it’s fucking with his head. Making him want her again.

Making what he’s about to say–which he knows, rationally, is in everyone’s best long-term interest–one of the hardest things he’s ever done. 

_I’m fine_

_But this probably isn’t going to work out._

**Has she been aggressive with you?**

Ben pauses, considering his answer. 

 _No,_ he lies.

_But still, I’d prefer not to live with her this summer._

He’ll end up rubbing his dick fucking _raw_ inside of a week if she doesn’t leave. 

She simply cannot stay. No matter how desperately a small, depraved part of him wants her to.

**Of course, dear.**

**I’ll take care of it right away.**

**There are other people in the department who have volunteered to house exchange students this summer. There will be someone else who can take her.**

_Good_

_Thanks mom._

With that business taken care of, Ben shuts off his phone. He puts his arms down on the kitchen table and buries his head in them. 

He knows he should be relieved that this will all be over soon.

But he isn’t.

 

* * *

 

 

“Solo.”

Ben looks up from his coffee at the sound of a voice he has not heard in five years–but that he would still recognize just about anywhere.

His stomach sinks.

Just when he thought his day was looking up.

“Hux,” Ben greets, trying to force a smile. He’s pretty sure the end result is closer to a grimaceˆ but then, he’s never really cared much what Hux thinks. 

“What are you doing here?” The huge, lushly appointed twenty-third floor conference room at Snoke & Associates is only half full of interns. There are plenty of empty seats, but Hux pulls out the chair next to Ben’s anyway and sits down. 

Hux doesn’t seem to have changed at all since high school. He’s still all pasty-white skin and slicked-back ginger hair, and his distinctive alpha scent– _eau de asshole_ , Ben used to call it back in high school–is still there. Though now, at least, it’s muted behind better blockers than what he was on when they were teenagers.  

Ben shrugs. “I’m here for a summer internship,” he says. He doesn’t need to get into the rest of it with this jerk. He doesn’t owe Hux anything. He never has. “Same as you I’m guessing.”

Hux scoffs. “I thought you were never going to set foot in Chicago again. Isn’t that what you said?”

Ben grits his teeth and tries to tamp down the bitter memories Hux’s words conjure. Senior prom. Being drunker than he’d really meant to be. 

Mad at the world, his parents. And more than anything, mad at himself.

“People change,” Ben says. He takes a sip of his coffee, then grimaces when he realizes the seventeen-year-old barista fucked up his order. How hard can it be to get plain black coffee right? “People grow.”

“You don’t.” Hux smirks, looking so fucking smug Ben’s fist itches with the barely-suppressed urge to punch him. 

But before Ben is able to think of a response that won’t get him carted out by security, Mr. Alistair Snoke–the CEO of Snoke & Associates, and the reason Ben is sitting here in this overly air conditioned conference room in a suit that doesn’t fit him right–enters the room. 

“Good morning, everyone,” the man says, his voice silky smooth. He is old–much older than the picture on Snoke & Associates’ website makes him look–with sunken cheeks and deep hollows under his eyes that make him look frighteningly skeletal. But he is impeccably dressed, as though wearing an expensive suit will distract everyone from the fact that the CEO of this Fortune 500 company looks like he’s got one foot in the grave. 

All eyes in the room are on him as Snoke slowly makes his way to the head of the conference room table. He sits down with an almost theatrical flourish and then steeples his fingers together. He rests his chin on the point they make, smiling at them. But there is no humor, no joy of any kind, in his expression. 

His eyes go around the room, from intern to intern, landing on each of them. They linger a beat too long, and with such piercing intensity Ben can’t help but feel the old man is sizing each of them up. Trying to decide, in the first half hour of the summer, what each of them is made of.

When they finally land on him, Snoke’s smile grows, changes, into something truly frightening.

“Welcome to the first summer of the rest of your lives,” he says, his eyes on Ben the entire time. 

 _This is what I signed up for_ , Ben reminds himself, as Snoke begins his speech to the gathered group. _I knew it was going to be like this._

But every time Snoke’s eyes drift back towards him during the course of the presentation, Ben’s blood runs a little colder all the same.

 

* * *

 

It’s after seven before Ben finally makes it back to his parents’ house.

It was a brutal first day and he is exhausted.  Also… it might have just been his imagination but it felt like his new boss kept singling him out, somehow, even when he was not directly speaking with him. Even when Ben was alone in his cubicle he could have sworn Snoke was always hovering nearby, just out of his line of sight.

Again, it’s possible he was only imagining things. Somehow, though, Ben doesn’t think he was.

Either way, one very big upside to his stressful day is he actually went multiple hours in a row without thinking about either Rey or what happened with her last night. 

A small miracle, really.

But now that Ben’s back home again, the situation he currently finds himself in comes rushing back.  

He knows it’s possible Rey isn’t here. She could be on campus, or out with a new friend. For all he knows she’s already moved out and has found herself a different living situation that’s less fraught than this one’s almost certainly going to be.

Then again, it’s also possible Rey _is_ here. That’s what makes Ben hesitate on his parents’ front porch for a solid five minutes before he finally works up the nerve to open the front door. 

If Rey is here, and if she wasn’t able to get blockers today, what the fuck is he going to do?

He takes a deep breath in through his nose and holds it--just in case--as he opens the door.

The scent that nearly brought him to his knees yesterday is still here. But it’s fainter now, buried beneath the strangely metallic odor of a blocker he recognizes as popular among college students. It’s cheap stuff and it makes Ben’s stomach churn a little every time he comes across it. 

This time is no exception. But literally anything would be an improvement over last night.

Rey is back home, then. Clearly. And on blockers. He thinks of calling out to her, to let her know he’s here. But he thinks better of it when he realizes he has no idea what he’s actually going to _say_ to her the next time they’re face to face.

As it turns out, she’s the one who calls out to him.

“Ben?” Her voice is distant, carrying to him from a different part of the house. “Can you… can you come here a minute?”

There’s none of the alpha assertiveness in her tone that she used on him last night. She just sounds tired. He could say no if he wanted to. He probably _should_ say no, should try and keep his distance until he can come up with a strategy for being around her.

The only problem is… he doesn’t really _want_ to say no. 

So he doesn’t.

“Sure,” he says, his heart already pounding. He drops his leather briefcase by the front door and walks in the direction of her voice.

He finds her standing on the second floor landing, looking down at him from the top of the stairs. She’s wearing an Arya Stark t-shirt and tight jeans slung low across her hips. And… 

Well. It’s a good look on her. 

Maybe everything is a good look on her.

The second floor hallway is dimly lit, but even from down here Ben can easily see the dark circles ringing her eyes. For the first time today, he wonders if Rey had as much trouble sleeping last night as he did.

He takes the stairs two at a time, shoving his hands into his pockets as he goes. Just in case he’s tempted to touch her in a way she wouldn’t welcome. Her alpha scent is definitely muted beneath her blockers but it isn’t _gone_. And it’s getting stronger the closer he gets to her.

He’s already starting to feel a little lightheaded, and he figures his hands in his pockets is the safest way to go.

But when he reaches her on the second floor Rey practically recoils from him, shrinking visibly into herself. Clearly doing whatever she can to avoid him touching her. Ben’s stomach drops at the reminder that no matter how attracted he is to her, she doesn’t want anything to do with him, physically.

But there’s no time for self-pity now. Or at least, he needs to get over it fast. Rey’s cheeks are tracked with dried tears and her eyes are bloodshot-- and something is _clearly_ wrong.

“What is it?” he asks, unable to keep the worry out of his voice.

“I feel sick.” Her voice is hoarse, wobbly. Barely above a whisper. “The medicine they gave me. It’s… I feel _awful.”_

He frowns.

“Did they not give you your usual kind?” Ben knows university clinics usually have go-to brands of things they dispense to students for convenience. But at every university he’s ever gone to the blockers and suppressants are usually pretty generic and easy for most people to tolerate. Although, maybe she’s grown up with, and is used to, something radically different. He wouldn’t know.

She shakes her head.

“No.” She steps a little closer to him, into a sunbeam coming in through the second-story skylight. Only then does Ben realize how pale she is. She looks cold, too. Her skin is clammy. “No, I… I’ve never taken this kind before.”

In spite of every weird thing that’s happened between them over the past twenty-four hours-- despite the deliberate way she rejected him last night--Ben can’t help but feel sympathy for her. “Did they not _have_ your kind?”

To his great surprise, instead of answering his question, Rey’s eyes begin to fill with tears.

“I… I don’t know what to do.” Her voice is so quiet Ben can hardly hear her. She folds her arms across her stomach, tight. Like she’s literally trying to hold herself together. “I’m so scared _._ ”

Scared?

Fuck. She must _really_ feel sick.

“Hey,” he says soothingly. He acts on pure instinct, hands leaving his pockets and reaching for her before he knows what he’s doing. He puts one hand at the small of her back. 

He braces himself for another rebuke. But to his great surprise, she lets him touch her. 

Ben thinks back to the last time his meds made him really sick. It was his freshman year of college, right before finals. He’d forgotten a few days’ worth of doses and had to take make-up pills so he was covered during exams.

He’d felt like throwing up for days. 

“It’s going to be okay, Rey,” he says. She still hasn’t moved away from his touch. Emboldened, he starts to rub gentle circles at the small of her back, hoping she finds the gesture reassuring. He can’t really believe he’s doing this right now, reassuring an alpha who’s made it abundantly clear she doesn’t want him. But she’s _scared_ . He’s her _host_. “You know it’ll be fine. In a few more days, you’ll–”

“No,” she says, abruptly cutting him off. She shakes her head. “I really _don’t_ think it will be okay.”

She buries her face in her hands. They’re trembling. _She’s_ trembling.

“What can I do?” Because he _has_ to do something. He can smell the fear and self-loathing pouring out of her in equal measure now, and every single one of his instincts is screaming at him to _fix this._ And unlike last night, this time, she must actually want something from him, right? Otherwise, why would she have asked him to come up here?

Rey drops her hands and regards him carefully, considering his question, considering him, for a long moment without saying anything.

And then: “Can you... spend some time with me?” She bites her lip, and Ben absolutely does _not_ stare at her little bow-shaped mouth when she does it. “Distract me. I need distractions, I think. Like, can you watch a movie with me? Or play a board game? Or…”

He quirks an eyebrow at her. “Board games?” His heart is pounding like he’s just run a mile, and really, he’s not certain her blockers are actually working that well. Not when she’s this close to him. Her back feels so warm. Everything about her is so _warm_ _._ And so beautiful.  But he can’t stop the smile that spreads across his face all the same. “Really?”

She takes a small step towards him. There’s an aggressive gleam in her eye, and a brief, but powerful flare of alpha pheromones that goes right to his groin. _“_ What’s wrong with board games?”

He takes another small step towards her. Too close, _too close_ , but she doesn’t move away from him and he can smell her better from here, and–

“Nothing’s wrong with board games,” he says. He puts his hands up defensively. Her pupils dilate visibly at the sight of it and–oh, this is a _terrible_ idea. “It’s just that I never lose.”

She winces a little as something–a flash of pain, possibly–comes over her. 

But she recovers quickly. 

She smirks at him.  “Neither do I.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A month of travel and summer birthday fics is responsible for the delay in this update. But here we are again, back on schedule. If you still remember this fic, and are still reading, thank you for your patience. <3

_ “You’ve never experienced rut before? Or heat?” _

_ The nurse doesn’t make eye contact with Rey as she ticks off the questions on her list. Rey guesses this must be routine for her. She probably sees students with heat- and rut-related problems every day of the week. _

_ But nothing about this experience is routine for Rey. The paper dressing gown they’ve given her is comfortable enough for what it is and covers all the important bits. All the same, Rey has never felt more exposed.  _

_ “No,” Rey says. She crosses her legs at the ankles out of nervous habit, glad that at least they let her keep her socks on. “Never.” _

_ The nurse makes some notes on her chart, then turns to the laptop on the little examination table beside her.  _

_ “So. You’re nineteen years old,” the nurse says, reading from her screen. “How old were you when you got your first period?” _

_ Rey blushes at this, feeling embarrassed by the question. Though that’s ridiculous, of course. She’s here because she almost jumped her host brother last night and she’s terrified she’s on an immutable collision course with her first rut. There’s no time or space for modesty here. _

_ “I was almost sixteen,” she murmurs. She starts chewing on her thumbnail. “But the first year I only got it once in a while.” _

_ The nurse looks directly at Rey for the first time since she entered the room. _

_ “When would you say your periods became regular?” _

_ Rey bites her lip. “Maybe a year ago? Not really sure. I never paid much attention to it because I…” _

Wasn’t all that sexually active _ , she thinks, but doesn’t say.  _

_ The nurse gives her a knowing look anyway, and makes another note on her chart.  _

_ “Well, Rey,” the nurse begins. She swivels her chair around so she’s facing her. She gives her a smile that Rey knows, from her years spent in the British foster care system, is meant to be reassuring. But Rey is anything but reassured. “The symptoms you’re describing are pretty  typical for newly presenting alphas. The only unusual thing about them is your gender _ — _ most, though certainly not all, alphas are male _ — _ and your age.” _

_ The nurse rummages around in the top drawer of the examination table she’d been writing on until she finds a prescription pad. _

_ “I’m going to prescribe you Blockerall. Most alphas eventually find it easy to tolerate but they might make you feel sick at first.” The nurse turns to the prescription pad and scribbles down the name of the drug Rey will need to take every day for the rest of her life. “But the nausea should pass after a few days.” She turns and hands the slip of paper to Rey. “It also may take a few tries before we find a blocker that works for you.” _

_ Rey had been worried about that. “How will I know if this one works?” _

_ The nurse tilts her head to the side, looking like she’s thinking of how best to respond to that question.  _

_ But instead of answering it, she asks: “Can you stay home from school for a few days?” _

_ Rey swallows. “I’m on a study abroad program. The program starts next Wednesday. I can probably stay home until then, but after that…” _

_ The nurse relaxes a little. “Oh, good. Yes. By next Wednesday we should know whether this drug is well enough suited to your particular system to prevent rut. Until then, though, you should probably stay home and rest as much as you can.” She gives Rey a kind smile. “And try and stay away from unmated omegas to the extent you can. Just in case.” _

_ Rey wants to ask ‘just in case, what?’  _

_ But she thinks she already knows. _

_ She swallows. Nods. _

_ But inside, she is reeling. Ben Solo is an unmated omega. How the hell is she supposed to stay away from him until Wednesday?  _

_ “Thank you,” she says anyway. _

_ The nurse gives Rey another sympathetic smile. _

_ “You’ll be okay,” she says. But Rey doesn’t know whether to believe her. _

 

* * *

 

The game closet off the kitchen is almost as big as Rey’s entire studio apartment back home. 

Rey doesn’t know why she’s surprised. Everything in this massive house feels supersized to her. But she is still surprised, all the same, when she walks into it with Ben and finds not a proper _ closet _ like she’d expected but a room that’s only a little smaller than her bedroom upstairs.

It’s almost enough to distract her from the nearly overpowering nausea she’s been struggling with since her first dose of Blockerall this morning.

“What do you want to play?” he asks. For what feels like the first time since she got here yesterday, he’s not looking at her. Instead, he’s scrutinizing the neatly arranged shelves of games lining the walls with a careful eye, so intensely Rey has to wonder just how seriously he takes his gaming. 

Rey doesn’t really know how to answer his question. Honestly, she hadn’t expected him to take her up on her weird, random request to play games.  

But he has taken her up on it. Apparently. So she supposes she needs to say something.

“I haven’t heard of most of these,” she admits, eyeing the selection.  _ Warhammer _ , she reads.  _ What the hell is  _ Warhammer _?  _

“What about Settlers of Catan?” Ben pulls a red box down from one of the uppermost shelves. There’s a cartoon drawing of a man and woman on the cover that reminds Rey of pilgrims. “It’s pretty easy. And fun. Have you played it?”

“No,” she says. She looks at the box some more. “I think Finn has it, though.”

A pause. Ben’s jaw clenches almost imperceptibly. “Finn?”

“My friend back home.”

Ben nods his understanding. Seems to relax a little. “Ah.”

She tries to smile at him. She’s feeling horrible from her medication so it isn’t easy. But Ben didn’t ask to be stuck babysitting an out of control, brand new baby alpha this summer. This has to be almost as hard on him as it is on her.

And he’s trying so hard.

“Settlers of Catan looks fun,” she says. “Let’s play it.”

Ben smiles at her, and  _ god _ , he is good-looking. She can’t smell him anymore—or at least, not very much; the blockers appear to be working, for the most part, even if they’re making her sick—but the blockers have no effect whatsoever on her eyesight. Ben’s smile lights up his entire face, transforms it. Makes it just about impossible for her to look anywhere but right at his perfect, full mouth.

_ His lips look soft _ , she thinks, before she can stop herself. 

She wonders, idly, if they’re as soft as they look. What his mouth tastes like. If he’d like the way  _ she _ tastes, if she were to push him up against the wall in here and kiss him senseless. He looks strong—all broad shoulders and muscled arms—but she bets he’d go willingly with the gentlest of nudges from her.

“Good,” Ben says abruptly. It snaps her back to the present. To the game closet, which suddenly doesn’t feel quite so spacious anymore. “Let’s play.” 

He walks out of the closet before she does, so hurriedly Rey wonders if he feels it too. 

\---

They decide to play on the kitchen table. 

Rey watches as Ben sets up the board, feeling a little tingle of  _ deja vu  _ as he does it. Like maybe she’s played this game before after all and just forgotten about it. 

“You have four different resources in this game: wood, brick, sheep, and clay.” Ben’s large, surprisingly graceful hands line up the hexagonal tiles without even looking at them. He must have played this a million times before. “The object is to be the first person to get to ten points by collecting resources and then spending them to build settlements, roads, and cities.”

“Settlements, roads, and cities,” Rey repeats. “Seems simple enough. I think I’m going to like this game.”

He grins at her again. Beams at her, really. And…  _ oh. _ There it is, just out of range of her sense of smell, that hint of warmth and blossoming that’s enough, even on her blockers, to make her mouth water.

It makes sense, she supposes, that he’d respond to her words. And that she in turn would respond to  _ his _ response. Omegas are biologically programmed to want to please their alphas. She just said, essentially, that the game is pleasing to her, and so…

It makes sense, in a way. All of it.

Fortunately for them both, he recovers quickly. 

He schools his features and finishes setting up the board.

“Which color do you want to be?” he asks as he shuffles the resource cards, no inflection in his voice at all.

 

* * *

 

They fall into a surprisingly easy rhythm with one another once the game gets underway. 

Surprising, given everything that’s happened since she arrived here. 

Apparently, when they aren’t able to smell each other, and they’re not overwhelmed with any of the other things that have made the past day an absolute torment for both of them—when it’s just them and a bunch of little brightly-colored game pieces—it’s easy, sort of. To be here. With him.

She wouldn’t have thought it possible even an hour ago.

“When does your internship start?” Ben’s still studying the board, his brows furrowed in concentration as he tries to decide where to place his next road.  

Rey’s about to answer him when she realizes, with a start, that they still know almost nothing about each other. She doesn’t know what he majored in in college or even where he went to college. Ben doesn’t know about the group homes or the abusive foster parents or all those nights she spent lying awake, wondering if anyone would ever love her enough to stay.

This is their first real attempt at anything approximating small talk. The significance of this is not lost on Rey. Ben is still staring at the board, not at her, but Rey’s fairly certain it’s not lost on him, either.

And then, Ben wordlessly places his road in the exact location she’d been hoping to go on her turn. Cutting her off.

Her jaw drops. 

“Hey!” she shouts. “That’s not fair.”

Ben shrugs, smirking. “It’s a game. Deal with it.”

She sighs, and then laughs a little. “Fine. Whatever.” She takes the dice back from him and prepares to roll them. “My internship was supposed to start tomorrow,” she says. “Classes on Wednesday. But this morning, the nurse said…”

She trails off. How much should she tell Ben? He already knows she wasn’t on blockers when she got here. But does he need to know that she literally just presented yesterday?

No, she decides. He doesn’t. The truth will only freak him out. And it doesn’t really matter anyway because she’ll probably have a new living situation soon.

“The nurse I saw wants me to take it easy for a few days,” she says. Which is true as far as it goes. “They want me to stay here. At home. Just in case.

“That seems wise,” he says, nodding. “This situation seems to have… uh.” He scratches at the back of his neck as he searches for the right words. “Thrown you for a bit of a loop.”

_ To put it mildly, _ Rey thinks.

“Yeah.”

It’s Rey’s turn, and Ben hands her the dice. She throws them on the table and gets an eight.

She grins to herself. She gets tons of resources whenever an eight is rolled.

As she collects them Ben asks: “Where are you interning?”

More small talk. This is... starting to feel okay. Like a normal conversation anyone might have with their new host brother. 

Maybe the next few days are going to be okay after all.

“Barnes & Dameron,” she says. She scrutinizes the cards in her hands, weighing whether she should buy another settlement now or hold out for a city. “It’s a firm on Lower Wacker. It’s small, but—”

“Oh, sure.” Ben is rearranging the cards in his hands, not looking at her. “I’ve heard of them.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. The Damerons are old family friends. Well; sort of friends, anyway.” He scratches at his chin absently, looking very lost in thought.  

With his attention elsewhere Rey takes the opportunity to just… watch him a moment. The features of his face are unusual. Together they add up to far more than just the sum of their parts. It may not be a conventionally handsome face, Rey decides. But it’s an unforgettable one. One that grabs hold of you and stays with you. Doesn’t let go.

“You must be pretty well connected,” Rey says. “To know the Damerons.” Rey doesn’t know much about the founders of Barnes & Dameron other than they are very well-respected in the Chicago architectural world.

Ben shrugs. “I guess? Comes with the territory of living with my mom.”

Of course. Leia Organa’s the president of a large university. She probably knows everybody in the city. 

“That makes sense,” she says.

Ben shrugs again. Takes the dice and tosses them with a quick roll of his hand.

He gets a two.

“Fuck,” he mutters. Nobody gets any resources when a two is rolled.

“Okay, my turn.” Rey grabs the dice and shakes them up. 

“I guess it is.”

“Yup. So—where are  _ you _ interning?” Rey asks. If they’re doing this small talk thing might as well go all in. “Is it some fancy firm downtown?”

At her question, and all of a sudden, without warning, everything about Ben’s demeanor changes.  His jaw clenches. His shoulders tense up.

He scowls at her.

_ He’s... suffering. _

“I don’t want to talk about my summer job,” he mutters. “Can we… can we just play?”

He looks at her imploringly. Pleading with his eyes.

_ I’ve upset him. _

Rey doesn’t know how she’s upset him. But she has. The thought is sudden, sharp. It sticks in her mind, lodges there hard, like a stick caught in the mud. Despite the blockers she took this morning Rey can now smell the unhappiness pouring off of Ben in waves. 

_ My fault. My fault. _

Rey tries to process what is happening right now, baffled both by Ben’s extreme reaction to her innocent questions and by her sudden, nearly irresistible urge to do everything she can to make him feel better. Make him happy.

Make him feel safe.

“Ben,” she says. “ _ Ben.” _

Her voice comes out all wrong. She sounds powerful, and different. And strange. Ben’s attention had drifted back down to the cards in his hands but at the sound of her voice his eyes snap to hers, so quickly it leaves her gasping.

He swallows. Rey watches his adam’s apple bob in his throat. The scent glands on either side of his neck pulse once, almost imperceptibly. 

Or maybe that’s just her imagination.

“Yeah?” he asks. Too quietly.

Before Rey can stop herself from doing it—without even thinking; acting on pure instinct—Rey reaches her hand across the table and grabs his. She hears Ben’s sharp intake of breath, his surprise at the unexpected physical contact. Some deeply hidden, newly-awakened part of her revels both in having caught him unawares and in the pleasure he takes in the surprise.

“It’s going to be okay,” she tells him, in a voice that still doesn’t sound like her. She needs to be soothing, but confident. Commanding. Her words are not an empty promise. She doesn’t know why the thought of his summer job upsets him but Rey will  _ make certain _ whatever is hurting him stops. She won’t rest until everything is okay.

Until Ben is safe. Protected.

_ Home. _

Ben closes his eyes and lets out a shuddering breath. But the tension does not leave him. He doesn’t believe her, even though she can feel how much he wants to. She can  _ smell _ it, even through her blockers. 

“Look at me,” she says. Sharp.

He does. 

Slowly, without breaking eye contact, Rey gets out of her chair and crosses over to him on the other side of the table. She looms over him like this, for once—him sitting in a chair; her standing. His breathing goes hard and fast when he realizes the sudden reversal in their height difference, and she can feel each one of his individual exhalations like a tiny flare sparking through her bloodstream.

“Tell me what I can do to make it better,” she tells him. “What can I—”

“Nothing,” he says bitterly. “There’s nothing anyone can do.” Rey wants to find whoever did this to him and tear them limb from limb. Her fingers itch with a sudden, nearly overpowering urge to destroy. “I’ve gotten myself into this mess. And… and…”

He trails off and buries his face in his hands.

_ No. _

Rey places her hands on either side of his face and lifts his head until he has to look at her again. His cheeks are hot, flushed. The faint stubble she can feel beneath her palms grounds her. Tells her what she needs to do.

She opens her mouth to tell him—

—and then, out of nowhere, a fresh wave of stabbing nausea rolls right through her, so intense Rey doubles over with the force of it.

“Ben,” she chokes out. “I need… I need…”

She doesn’t know what she needs. She drops her hands. Clutches her stomach. From a long distance away she hears Ben shove his chair back from the table. Its wooden legs scrape hard against the tile kitchen floor, but Rey barely registers it.

“Rey?” His voice sounds like it’s coming to her from underwater. His hands reach for her. The thought of him touching her sends another wave of pain-tinged nausea sparking through her, so strong this time she nearly blacks out. 

He continues to call her name—he sounds alarmed; she needs to go to him, calm him, let him know everything is going to be okay—but she’s already running out of the room, stumbling blindly towards the nearest bathroom.

 

* * *

 

 

Rey loses track of how long she’s been here, sitting on the hard cold tiled bathroom floor, her back to the wall and her face buried in her hands. 

At some point she must have gotten herself a damp towel. Because she’s holding one now, clutched in both hands like a lifeline. It’s the softest absorbent towel Rey has ever held in her hands. It probably cost a small fortune. Just like everything else here. It’s monogrammed with a little red ~ _ bCs~  _ along the bottom. For Ben, she guesses. She wonders what his middle name is. What the  _ C _ stands for.

It feels good, pressing the cool damp cloth to her forehead. She’s flushed, and hot. Far too hot. All over. She presses the towel to her forehead again and moans with the sweet relief it provides.

Eventually—maybe she’s only been here five minutes; or perhaps it’s been hours—there’s a quiet knock on the door.

“Rey?”

_ Ben _ . 

He sounds… agitated. She supposes that makes sense. She’d probably be agitated too if the tables were turned and he’d bolted from the room with no explanation.

She does a quick internal inventory to make sure she’s in good enough shape to let him in. She breathes in through her nose, out through her mouth. She smells the fragrant, floral laundry soap used to wash these hand towels. She smells the sweet-sharp tang of her own perspiration. 

And she smells Ben.

Ben.

He’s definitely worried about her. She can tell. She doesn’t know how she knows it, but she does, even though he hasn’t said anything and there’s a closed door and a few feet of charged space between them.

Her nausea, she realizes, is mostly gone now. But so too is most of the protection her blockers provided. She can smell him on the other side of the door, like musk and honey and everything she’s ever wanted, as easily as if her nose were buried in his hair.

She should keep the door closed, she thinks frantically. She should stay in here, hidden until it passes. Or maybe she should open the bathroom window, crawl out of the house, and run away, the way she used to when Unkar Plutt was being especially abusive towards her.

But she doesn’t do any of those things.

Instead, Rey gets to her feet, letting Ben’s irresistible scent draw her to him like a moth to a flame. She moves like a sleepwalker, and then reaches down to grasp the doorknob.

She opens the door.

Ben is standing on the other side of it, his stance rigid, his eyes wide. She wonders, idly, if he’s been out here the entire time. Waiting for her.

“ _ Oh _ ,” he says very softly. Pained. His eyes take her in--her ruined hair; her flushed complexion. She has no idea what she must smell like to him right now, but she knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he likes it.

More than likes it.

He  _ needs _ it.

“I… don’t think my blockers are working very well right now,” she murmurs. And then she laughs a little, involuntarily. Like her blockers ineffectiveness is nothing but a funny little inconvenience. 

But Ben isn’t laughing. He’s staring at her, his pupils blown wide, his nostrils flared. And,  _ oh _ , he is lilacs and candlelight. A warm blanket on a cold winter’s day. All she wants to do is bury herself in him—in his warm, welcoming scent—and let him bury himself in her in return.

Rey has to brace herself against the doorframe with both hands to keep from falling into it. Her nausea is completely gone now, but she’s just so…  _ dizzy.  _ Her heart is pounding in her chest, and she is so unbearably, incredibly hot. 

She looks up at him.

His face is unreadable.

“Actually,” he says. He clears his throat. “I don’t think your blockers are working at all.”

Slowly, he lifts one hand and gently, gently pushes a lock of sweaty hair off her forehead. His hand lingers there, a beat longer than it needs to, the touch of his fingertips leaving a trail of ice and fire in its wake. 

“I don’t… I don’t know if I can keep rut from happening. If I stay here tonight, in this house.” 

It’s the truth. It’s a confession. 

It’s a plea for forgiveness.

He whimpers. Nods, very slowly.

He understands what is happening, then.

“You said earlier… everything was going to be okay,” he reminds her. His scent is urgent. It’s home, and desperation, and everything Rey has ever wanted. It will be her ruin. She wants to bury her nose in his neck, right at the source, and live in his scent forever.

The words tumble out of her on instinct, before she can stop them. “I did. I promise. I will. I’ll make it all okay, Omega.” She’s so dizzy and… and so  _ not herself _ right now she doesn’t even realize she just called Ben  _ omega _ until she sees the reaction to it play across his face.

And then, his face crumples. He gets down on his knees, right there on the hardwood floor, and buries his face in the front of her jeans.

“Help me,” he whines. “Please.” He presses hungry, desperate kisses to her clothed legs.. Pleading with her. “Make it stop hurting. Only you can… Alpha, I can’t… I  _ can’t _ …  _ ” _

He looks up at her, eyes full of fear and pain and wonder.

All at once, a switch goes off inside her. A long-missing puzzle piece slips into place. 

Suddenly, Rey has the answer to every question she’s ever had.

“Get up,” she tells him. Somehow her voice sounds steady and certain. Even though inside she feels anything but. “I need you to stand up, Ben.”

He lets go of her without a word, as if commanded, without the slightest hesitation, and stands to his full height in front of her. It occurs to her that she could ask this man to do literally anything for her and he would do it, immediately, no questions asked. And then thank her for the opportunity.

She could ask him to do anything  _ to  _ her as well. She breathes in deeply through her nose and gets all the confirmation she could possibly want pouring off of him in waves.

Her cunt throbs— _ hard _ —with the very real understanding that if she wanted Ben to get down on the floor of this fucking bathroom right now and let her ride him for hours... he would. 

It’s dizzying. This power. It’s... too much.

And it’s hers.

He tenderly touches her face again, reverent, and Rey knows, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, that it’s too late to turn back now. His touch sends sparks shooting through her, as though every molecule in her body is already attuning itself to his scent.

“There’s only one way you can help me right now,” he rasps. He grabs her hand, but gently—and then, without waiting for her to answer him he presses it to his lips. He kisses the tips and,  _ oh _ , his mouth is just as soft as she imagined it would be. He sucks the tip of her index finger between his lips, and she can already feel herself slipping, hands scrabbling futilely for purchase on her sanity as her biology, and newly-awakened instinct, take over.

“Tell me what it is,” she says. “I want to hear you say it.  _ Say it.”  _ She reaches up with her free hand and strokes his scent gland. It  _ throbs _ beneath her fingertips. Her finger stutters on his tongue. She watches, a heady thrill going through her, as Ben’s eyes roll back in his head. As he bites his bottom lip in a feeble attempt to stifle his groans. “Tell me what you need.”

“You,” he whimpers. He lets her hand fall from his mouth. “I can’t—I was all right when your blockers were working, but I can’t… Rey, I  _ need _ —”

It’s too much. The swirl of desire coursing through her veins, the way Ben smells, standing so close to her--her whole body is on fire. 

And even though all of this is terrifyingly new to her, she knows there is only one way to quench it.

“I’m going to kiss you, Ben,” she tells him. A small part of her is screaming at her right now, telling her this is a terrible idea. The nurse’s warning to stay away from unmated omegas for a few days is there as well, but she can hardly hear it over the loud roaring in her ears. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

“Yes,” he groans. His eyes are closed. His jaw slack. “ _ Please _ .”

She leans forward and tangles her delicate fingers into his long, dark hair.

And then she tugs. Hard.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he groans. “Alpha, I—”

The rest of what he’d been about to say is swallowed up by her lips, hungry and moving against his own. 

She’s going to fuck him tonight, she decides, as they kiss each other in that hallway like the world is ending. It’s not right. It’s the wrong thing to do. It’s what he desperately needs. His cock is already so hard, straining against his jeans, pressing urgently against her thigh. She palms it roughly; he nearly comes on the spot.

“I’ll make you feel so good tonight nothing will ever be able to hurt you again,” she coos at him. “Do you want that?”

“Yes,” he whispers.

She tugs on his hair again. Even harder this time. His cock throbs against her palm. She’s going to have that inside her soon. She cannot believe this is happening. “I didn’t hear you, Ben.”

“Yes,” he whimpers. “Please.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Too late," Ben thinks, as he surges up to meet her. "I’m already ruined for anyone else."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alpha Rey and Omega Ben, now with 900% more smut ;)

Ben had his first wet dream shortly after presenting as an omega, back when he was thirteen years old and still miserable in his own skin. He remembers waking up the next morning in a tangle of sweat and sticky bed sheets, his cock and his bloodstream still buzzing with the remnants of the most mind-blowing orgasm he’d ever had.

He’d remembered very little of what happened in that dream after the fact, other than that he’d been mounted, his head shoved back hard against the pillows, by a powerful alpha who’d ridden him mercilessly until Ben’s cock couldn’t take any more.

That dream happened right here in the bed he’s in now--where Rey Johnson currently has him pinned to the mattress.

He is as powerless to stop what’s happening with Rey as he’d been in that dream.

Like he’d even want to try.

Rey is a slender woman. And Ben is strong.  _ Very  _ strong, especially for an omega. He suspects he could easily throw her off him if he wanted to. But if she wants to mount him in his childhood bed she can do it. As desperate as he is to hold on to what remains of his tattered pride, the ugly truth is that Rey Johnson can do whatever she wants to him right now. And he’d only beg her to keep going if she stopped.

His cock is so hard it’s almost painful, and he’s embarrassingly close to shaming himself by begging her to end this already and jerk him off. But she’s the one in control of this situation, not him. By the way she’s eyeing him from her vantage point on top of his body it’s clear to him she intends to make him wait.

So he says nothing, merely squirms beneath her a little, desperate for any kind of friction between his legs he can get.

“Please,” he whispers, before he can stop himself.

Rey smirks at that small sign of weakness, and then she is kissing his mouth, still fully dressed in her t-shirt and tight jeans, in no apparent rush to move things along. If Ben were in his right mind he would be luxuriating in the feel of her tongue sliding along his. He’d be trying to commit to memory how perfectly her sweet, soft lips mold themselves to his as they connect, over and over again.

But Ben isn’t in his right mind. He tries to cling to his self-control but Rey, her scent, her body, are the only things that exist right now. Her scent reaches inside him and blots out the world, forcing his attention away from everything else. And centering it all on her.

He is utterly hypnotized. Spellbound.

She will be the death of him.

Rey is licking a hot, possessive stripe along his scent gland now, and Ben can feel his mind, his independent will, unravelling beneath her as she does it. It pulls words from him, silly words, almost unconsciously.

“I’ve... never done this before.” 

Rey’s body freezes from her perch on top of him. Her tongue stutters on his pulse point as she tries to process what he just said.

She pulls back. Looks at him.

“You’re a virgin?” Her hair is a mess ( _ from my hands;  _ my _ hands made her look like that _ ) and her chest is heaving. The visual evidence that she is nearly as wrecked by this as he is makes his cock swell impossibly larger.

He squirms beneath her again. His erection brushes against her inner thigh, and… fuck. He’s dying. 

“No,” he gasps. “I mean--I’ve had sex before.” ( _ I’ve had sex twice before _ , he thinks, but doesn’t say.) “I just mean I’ve... never been with an alpha before. Not… not like this.”

Rey doesn’t say anything in response at first. Ben has a vivid, protracted moment of panic where he convinces himself Rey won’t want anything to do with someone as inexperienced with alpha-omega sex as he is. 

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if she turns him down now. 

But before he has a chance to open his mouth and say something stupid, Rey presses another slow, gentle kiss to his parted lips.

“I’ve never been with an omega before,” she admits. Her words are little puffs of air against his mouth. He can taste them. He can taste her. He never wants to taste anything else for as long as he lives. “At least--not like this. I’ve only fucked other-- I mean, I’ve only fucked betas.”

Ben nods, letting her know he understands. But he’s stunned by this revelation. An alpha that smells like Rey would surely have her pick of omegas, every single one of them willing to contort themselves into a pretzel to please her. For the merest chance she might pick them and split them in two. 

He personally has never felt more ripe for the picking. 

“Okay,” he says. Though he feels anything but.

Rey smirks again, and lifts herself up a little so she can place her warm, open palm along his straining length. He  _ whines _ at the contact. Like a fucking dog. Rey moves her hand along his shaft with an agonizing slowness, just feather-light strokes, up and down, with just the slightest bit of added pressure when she reaches the head. Every nerve ending in Ben’s body feels centered right in his cock. 

He is sure he’s only moments from coming. 

“I guess we’ll have to figure out how this works together,” she murmurs, still working him.

“Yes,” he gasps. Right now he would say yes to anything. “ _ Yes.” _

She leans forward until her mouth is by his ear.

“I’m going to make you feel so good, omega,” she coos. Her breath wafts over his scent gland; the noises he makes in response are barely human. “Better than anyone else has ever made you feel.” 

“ _ Please, _ ” he rasps.

She leans back, her knees on either side of him, and in one fluid motion peels off her t-shirt and bra. Her bare breasts are small, their rosey-tipped nipples jutting out sharply from her chest. Taunting him.

Ben has never seen anything more beautiful.

“Do you want to touch me, Ben?” Her voice is low. Teasing. She reaches up with her own hands, tracing the outline of each areola with a fingertip.

He swallows, staring at her. Trying to remember how to breathe.

He nods.

“Then touch me,” she instructs. She removes her hands. “Suck one of my nipples into your mouth. Play with the other with those fucking enormous hands of yours.” She tosses her head back, throwing her hair over her shoulder. She shimmies her hips a little and Ben’s eyes roll into the back of his head. “Make me so wet for you, Ben. And then, I’ll make you come so long and so hard you’ll be ruined for any other alpha.” 

_ Too late _ , Ben thinks, as he surges up to meet her.

_ I’m already ruined for anyone else. _

Ben hasn’t intimately touched another person in years. And he barely remembers how any of this works. But the moans Rey gifts him with when he sucks half of her breast into his mouth are all the encouragement he needs. He works and licks at her, tweaking her other nipple between thumb and forefinger, and she writhes above him, rubbing her clothed cunt against his aching cock.

“I’m going to fuck you tonight,” Rey says. She already told him this but he’s never been more grateful for a reminder. Her breath is coming in hard, sharp little pants.  “Do you want me to fuck you?”

He groans against her breast. It’s the only response he’s capable of. Because he might actually die if she doesn’t fuck her.

“What did you say, Omega?” Her voice sounds strange, has gone suddenly rough and sharp. She yanks on Ben’s hair, _hard_ , tugging on it until he has to pull away from her breast and look her in the eye. “Answer me. Use your words.”

Rey’s eyes are fully dilated now, her pupils so big and so fat they’ve practically swallowed up her irises. Her grip on his hair tightens, the sharp pain of it sending sparks of raw pleasure shooting down his spine. Ben notices her scent is changing. Spiking. At its core it’s still Rey, but there’s something else now too. Something desperate. Something primal.

_ She’s going into rut _ , he realizes, groaning again.

_ She might already be there. _

Before he can say anything else--before he can beg her to strip him naked and fuck him blind--she shoves him back against the pillows with both hands.

“Take your clothes off,” she orders in that same, hard, alpha voice. Her body is shaking a little, tight and vibrating with something Ben would think was rage under any other circumstances. But she isn’t angry. She  _ leers _ at his body--at his tight abdominal muscles; at his almost painfully swollen cock--as he obeys her instructions with shaking hands, eyeing him the way a starving person might eye a feast.

Rey’s clothes come off in quick order after that, and then her cunt is on him, rubbing along him, and then taking him to the hilt with one sharp movement of her hips.

Time seems to stop after that. Ben gasps, his hands scrabbling at her slender hips for purchase, and he hangs on for dear life as she begins, slowly, to bounce on his cock. She is so tight, and warm, and perfect around him, the walls of her cunt gripping him posessively as they drag wetly along his length.   

_ Mine _ , her cunt seems to say as she fucks him.  _ All mine. _

“Does this feel good for you, Omega?” Her voice, her scent, her cunt, reach into his soul, forcing out everything he is that isn’t  _ her _ . She speeds up a little, and he starts to fuck up into her to match her movements. His eyes are transfixed by the way her tits bob and bounce with every thrust. “ _ Does it _ ?”

He nods--the only response he’s capable of as her cunt works him into oblivion--before throwing his head back and letting out a primal moan.

“That’s good,” Rey says. She sounds pleased.  _ He’s pleased her.  _ He moans again, and she rewards him by speeding up even more. Her eyes flutter closed and she shifts position so that her clit rubs up against him with every movement. She’s using his body for her own pleasure, using him like a fucking object. Like a sex toy. He’s never wanted so badly to be used. “I want you to make noise for me, Ben.”

He complies. He can’t help but comply.

Ben loses track of how long she fucks him. He can’t keep track of all the filthy things she says to him, or all the incoherent noises he makes in response. But it isn’t long before her cunt clamps down on his cock,  _ hard _ , and she keens his name as her first orgasm tears through her. Ben can feel each one of the aftershocks as they wrack her body, as she tries to keep fucking him and thrusting through the mind-blowing pleasure, until finally her cunt’s grip on him is too tight for either of them to move.

And then it’s like a tidal wave, how Ben’s own orgasm rips through him without warning. It comes over him suddenly, and all at once, his back arching so hard off the bed she nearly topples off of him. Rey’s cunt squeezes him and squeezes him and  _ squeezes _ him, milking him dry of his cum as his cock spasms deep within her.

_ Take it _ , he thinks, barely breathing.  _ Take it all. _

She is full of him now. And she is so  _ greedy _ for it, this alpha. The noises Rey makes are barely human as he continues to pulse deep inside her, as she continues to try and fight the bind their bodies are in in her desperate, rut-born need for  _ more _ .

He’s unable to pull back or slip out of her. Not with her body clamped so tightly around his. But he relishes it. His few fumbling sexual experiences with betas left him oversensitive and in need of space after coming, but with Rey, he will  _ never _ want to pull back. He would happily spend the rest of his days tethered to her body, letting her use him for whatever purposes she wants him for.

“Take it,” he begs her, out loud this time. “Take everything.  _ Please _ .” He doesn’t care if there’s nothing left after she’s done.

She looks down at him through her eyelashes, through the burning haze of rut and lust.

“I intend to,” she tells him. She shifts her hips and somehow, she is able to coax him just a little bit deeper inside her. Ben cries out again as another orgasm rips through him, as his body yields to this alpha in every way.

 

* * *

 

 

Ben wakes shortly after sunrise. 

His entire body is sore and he feels utterly, deliciously used. He stretches; a full body stretch. He winces a little at the way his groin twinges at the movement.

Rey was absolutely merciless with him last night. No sooner would he come inside of her than she’d start coaxing him with gentle words and gentle touches straight into another almost painfully hard erection. Moments later they’d find themselves into another round of mind-blowing sex that would ultimately leave Ben incapacitated and boneless beneath her.

Last night was, without question, the single most satisfying sexual experience of his life.

Ben rolls over on a sigh, his eyes closed. He might be sore, but he doesn’t care. A half-baked plan to bury his face in Rey’s neck and ask her for more is already starting to take shape in his brain. 

But when his hands reach the other side of the bed the sheets are cold.

It’s still very early and they fucked half the night away. But Rey is definitely not in bed with him anymore. 

Frowning, Ben pulls back the sheets and grabs the first pair of boxers he can find. 

Rey is in her room across the hall with all the lights on, sitting naked and cross-legged in the middle of the bed. She’s frantically piling everything she brought with her from London into her three opened suitcases, moving like the house is on fire. 

“Rey,” he says, mystified. She doesn’t stop what she’s doing. She looks up at him, very briefly--but more than long enough for him to see her red eyes and her tear-stained, blotchy cheeks. He starts to panic. “Are you… are you  _ crying _ ?”

“Yes.” She gets up and throws on a t-shirt and a pair of pink underwear. “I’m crying.”

He waits for her to elaborate. When she doesn’t--just continues throwing things in her suitcases as quickly as possible--he asks: “Why?”

_ I don’t please her _ , an insistent voice in the back of his head shouts at him.

_ You didn’t satisfy her.  _

“I shouldn’t be here.” Rey is sniffling back a fresh wave of tears, which she scrubs away with the back of her hand. “Coming here--staying…” She shakes her head. “This was a terrible mistake.”

Ben’s eyes go wide. “Rey, what--”

_ She could tell you didn’t know what you were doing. _

_ She needs a better omega. _

_ One who pleases her. _

_ One who is good at fucking her and pleasing her. _

She tugs on a pair of blue jeans and pulls her hair back into a loose ponytail. Wispy tendrils fall from it to lie flat against the back of her neck. (He’d had that hair in his face last night, had tasted it, had wanted to wrap it tight around his hands so she could never leave him.)

“I have to go,” she says. She pauses, and turns to look at him. She looks  _ terrified. _ “I lost control last night, Ben.” She swallows, and buries her face in her hands. “I went into  _ rut _ .”

“So?” He is legitimately confused. He takes a giant step towards her, every instinct in his body screaming at him to do something,  _ anything _ , to make her stop crying. To please her. “I  _ liked it _ , Rey.”

“But I didn’t mean to! I couldn’t control it. I wasn’t myself.” She tears her hands away from her face and slams one of her suitcases shut. “Ben… I went into  _ rut _ . I’m not… I’m not safe to be around.” 

This is making no sense at all. “What do you mean you’re not safe to be around?” Surely she’s had experience with rut before. Hasn’t she? “You just need your new meds to start working. But anyway, I don’t  _ care _ that you went into rut. Rey--”

But she doesn’t answer him. Instead, she turns her back on him, and resumes packing.

“When you come back from class today, I’ll be gone,” she murmurs. “I’m so sorry for everything.”   

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on twitter at [jeenonamit](https://twitter.com/jeenonamit/)!  
> Or on tumblr, also at [jeenonamit](https://jeenonamit.tumblr.com/).


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